Favorites: None So Vile (1996)

In 1996 the Montreal band Cryptopsy released an absolute masterpiece of roaring technical death metal: “None So Vile”. You will find few albums that pack as much into 32 minutes as this beast does. The drumming and fretwork is some of the most exasperatingly precise in an already pretty exasperating genre. Yet for something this dark and extreme, it’s also pretty damn catchy. It’s at least the catchiest album with a song titled “Orgiastic Disembowelment”. Was that also a Phil Collins song? Opening with a tongue-in-cheek(?) sample from the third “Exorcist” film (the album also ends with a clip from “Army of Darkness”), the band quickly sets to work aurally assaulting (my cat runs out of the room whenever I play Cryptopsy). While metal has, perhaps cynically, become cool for hipsters in the past couple of years after a couple decades worth of scorn (bah!), this album might still beat their skinny jeaned asses into a pulp. As with all death metal, the Cookie Monster vocals are a love it or leave it proposition, but even if this isn’t normally your cup of bile, I’d suggest giving this album a shot. Arguably, this was the album that saved death metal from becoming irrelevant (or one long Cannibal Corpse song) in the mid-90s, and it ranks up there with the best Death and Morbid Angel albums.